This invention relates to an automatic apparatus for obtaining ring-shaped articles from an elongated plait or strip of textile material.
More in particular the present invention relates to an apparatus which provides for obtaining in a completely automatic way ring-shaped articles of a somewhat elastic material, having their most important application generally in the field of clothing and especially corsetry and underclothes, stockings and waist-stockings, swimsuits, etc.
At present, the manufacture of such rings of textile material is essentially carried out manually, since an operator must be continuously in attendance at the equipment which is used in the various steps. These comprise, as it is known, cutting the strip into sections of prefixed length, folding the sections in two halves and inserting the two ends to be sewed of said folded sections into a usual sewing-machine of the type with cutting means, from which the finished ring-shaped articles are then removed and forwarded to a discharging device. Except for the sewing operation performed in the sewing and cutting machine, all the other operations are carried out by hand, whereby a ring-shaped article of textile material is obtained after some time, which results in a high cost of each finished article. The number of the products is therefore greatly reduced and a possible increase in the number of articles manufactured depends heavily of the employed operator, and even by increasing the number of operators the problem may not be solved.